Electro-poppers London Transit aim to sell high with their Digital Kid

Buy low, sell high. That’s the refrain sung by Kansas City’s London Transit on its song “Capital.”

Like the stock market itself, the lyric’s creation has more to do with chance than clairvoyance.

“I was kind of blank on lyrics, and I had an IRA envelope on my desk,” explains songwriter and keyboardist Brian Schick. “It’s pretty relevant now. No one cared about the stock market a couple years ago.”

The same peaks and valleys characterize the local electro scene that London Transit will set aflutter with the July 3 release of its debut album, Digital Kid, a four-years-in-the-making project that reflects the hard work and fun that went into it.

“When you play that type of music, you gotta be careful,” Schick says. “You can’t just cruise into the Riot Room and whip out some electro-pop when you’re playing with the Esoteric. You’ll probably get beat up.”

London Transit’s trick is to combine danceable beats with substantial songcraft and subversive melodies. As with Hot Chip or the Postal Service, London Transit’s most valuable capital is its softly sung vocals.

“With the lack of drums, we try to stretch our creativity to make up for that in other ways,” says keyboardist C.J. Drumiller. He says the band often hides its musical complexitiy for the sake of those in the crowd who just want to dance.

In the live setting, London Transit gives its more mellow and introspective material a makeover with four-on-the-floor beats, live keyboard manipulations and faster tempos.

“It’s like the CD on steroids,” Drumiller says. “It’s got some more grit.”

The swaying men onstage want you to dance, but they don’t mind if you stop to watch the show.

“DJs are cool, but you don’t watch them,” Schick says. “We wanted [the album] to sound indie. I think if you go too far electronic, you narrow your audience.”

To that end, guitarist Johnathon Brown rounds out the group with tasteful licks that complement the measured bleeping of the trio’s laptops. Software programs, such as Battery by Native Instruments, began appealing to Brown and Schick after the drummer of their former band, Sky Pilot, moved away.

“We were like, ‘Screw it, we’re going to get an MPC,'” Schick says with a laugh. “We started again with a whole new perspective. There was a newness, a freshness and a whole spectrum of sounds I’d never tapped into. The possibilities are endless — you get to use claps and lots of really great bass.”

Eventually, the atmospheric indie rock of Sky Pilot gave way to the kooky electro-pop of London Transit. After hooking up with Drumiller, Schick and Brown ditched their early recordings and began writing the body of work that comprises Digital Kid.

“I’ve done the rock thing and tried to be serious,” Schick reflects. “This is the other side — quirky and fun. The lyrics are almost comical.”

Drumiller adds: “I’ve never been in a band where you can laugh onstage and have it be cool.”

That levity manifests itself in such as “Hot and Cold,” which ruminates, If I was in Mexico, I might be hot, I might drink agua/If I was in Switzerland, I might be cold, I might drink java. “L to the T” satirizes self-proud hip-hop and brags, LT will make you dance/LT puts you in a trance/We will drive it home.

“If someone dances, that’s the ultimate compliment for me,” Schick says. “We’ve played some great shows with DJs like Nomathmatics and Iggy Baby. They’ve kind of outdone us.”

With the release of Digital Kid, however, London Transit sets the bar high for local knob tweakers. The group self-produced the album and mixed it with Paul Malinowski at Westend Recording Studios, emerging with a glossy sound that thumps and chimes and makes listeners want to buy into the boast that LT will make you sing/LT will sell you things.

Such claims will be put to the test when London Transit celebrates the release of Digital Kid Friday at the Czar Bar, where the band will give away 50 free copies of the album.

“I’m sure it will be a fun show — it’s not going to be a big spectacle or anything,” Schick says. “I think the quality is in the record, and people will hear it and catch on.”

If that holds true, the market will truly be on London Transit’s side.